On the 26th of June, the pupils in Year 7, 8 and 9 took part in a performance of The Merestone. It is an adventure story that found 3 children being transported to a magical forest and having to take on the evil crone that was Hagbane! Luckily, with the help of the forest creatures, the children helped to get rid of Hagbane and restore the forest back to its former glory and the magical Merestone back to the forest.

All of the pupils worked so hard to learn their lines and to try to remember where they had to be on the stage. It was a pleasure to welcome such a large audience on Wednesday; the reaction from family and friends was wonderful.

The girls presented gifts and cards to all the staff who had put in so much of their time and energy to make sure that the performance was a success.

Alfriston is once again taking part in the Send My Friend to School campaign to help put pressure on world leaders to find enough teachers and get every child worldwide into school.

United Nations estimates show that there is a global shortage of 1.7 million teachers, with 1 million professional teachers needed in Africa alone. In the year 2000, world leaders made a promise that every child would receive a quality primary education by 2015. However, there are still over 60 million children missing out on even a basic primary education, with millions more struggling to learn in oversized classes and with unqualified teachers.

To support Send My Friend to School the Student Council has enlisted the help of Mrs Chapman and the art department to make a large teacher cut out which we intend to make into an eye catching collage. This week all pupils are completing an individual message to say why they think every child deserves a teacher and these will form part of the collage.

Some girls in school have been learning about mobile phone safety. Please help all young people to stay safe and keep their mobile safe by registering them on the website at www.immobilise.com

Immobilise is the world’s largest FREE register of possession ownership details and with its sister site CheckMEND, the largest database of stolen property and blocked mobile phones.

According to the Mobile Life Youth Report three-quarters of young people have had their phone bought for them by their parents, while half have their calls paid for by their parents. If your child doesn’t already have a mobile phone then you may be considering purchasing one for them soon. When deciding which phone to purchase, consider their needs at this age and perhaps opt for a basic model, to make it less attractive in terms of theft or bullying.

6% of children aged 10 to 15 years reported unwanted and nasty emails or texts, or abusive postings on a website. [British Crime Survey, 2011]

1 in 5 boys and girls aged 6 to 9 years old reported being the victim of cyberbullying [AVG, 2011].

This is partly because children in the UK use social networks for longer than any other country and the advent of smart phones has made mobile social networking an any time, everyday pass-time. 1 in 10 of those questioned said they used Facebook, even though they were well beneath the minimum age limit of 13.

Mobile phones are stolen in about half of all street crime and in approximately a third of cases it is the only property stolen. [National Mobile Phone Crime Unit, 2010]

Registering your mobiles before they are lost or stolen, may help to recover the phone. In the event of loss or theft, the details of the handset will become available to Police and other agencies which may assist in its recovery, as well as provide those all important details for insurance purposes. Remember, however, that to have the phone blocked YOU MUST report the loss or theft to the network provider to ensure that it cannot be used to make calls by the finder or thief here in the UK. Call 08701 123123 for further advice.

Unfortunately blocking the handset from network use will not block access to personal information or online accounts which are not password protected, so encourage your child not to store sensitive personal information on their mobile unless it is password or PIN code protected.

A staggering 228 mobile phones are reported stolen every hour in the UK

[UK Technology, June 2010]

Remember to keep a note of your IMEI numbers and log on to www.immobilise.com for more information or to register your phones today.

Encourage your child to carry the pocket sized Watch it! Safety Tips and emergency numbers with them wherever they go, if this leaflet has not been given to your child you can download it from the parents section at www.outofyourhands.com where you will also find other useful information and support on mobile phone safety and cyberbullying.

Nobody wants to spend the entire summer indoors, and indeed some sunshine, below sunburn level, can be good for us, helping the body to create vitamin D and giving many of us a feeling of general wellbeing, as we enjoy taking walks in the sunshine and enjoying outdoors summer activities.

However, all too often we over-do our sun exposure which can lead to a range of skin problems, the most serious of which include skin cancer.

Ultra Violet radiation from the sun is in three wavelengths – UVA, UVB and UVC.

UVA causes the skin to become leathery and wrinkled as well as causing skin disease

UVB, causes sunburn, which has strong links to skin disease

UVC does not penetrate the earth’s atmosphere, so we don’t need to worry about that so much.

When you are buying suncreams or sunglasses you should check what they are supposed to protect against – UVA or UVB or both?

When you are buying a sunscreen cream you should look to see what sun protection factor it offers. This is called SPF. New labelling will state whether the SPF is low, medium, high or very high:

New label

SPF

Low protection

6 to 14 (i.e. SPF 6 and 10)

Medium protection

15 to 29 (i.e. SPF 15, 20 and 25)

High protection

30 to 50 (i.e. SPF 30 and 50)

Very high protection

50 + (i.e. SPF 50+)

Exactly what sort of protection you need will depend on your skin type

But there are other things you can do to stay safe in the sun and protect yourself from skin disease:

Wear loose, cool clothing

Spend time in the shade – especially between 11 and 3 – the hottest part of the day

Drink plenty of water

And how about those words? How are they supposed to help? The messages they are designed to prompt give good sound advice as shown below.